MEDIA: A Bad Week for African Journalists

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Oct 10 2003 (IPS) - The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers.
     “It is true that technology has made information exchange easier and more accessible to a wider group of people, but in Africa, governments still have the power to get rid of dissenting views through old-fashioned strong-arm tactics,” says Martin Mngomezulu, a Swaziland stringer for an international wire news service.

The African media had a bad week throughout the continent, as governments closed private radio stations and newspapers, and arrested editors, reporters and publishers in what press freedom organisations consider an effort to eliminate the free flow of information.

“It is true that technology has made information exchange easier and more accessible to a wider group of people, but in Africa, governments still have the power to get rid of dissenting views through old-fashioned strong-arm tactics,” says Martin Mngomezulu, a Swaziland stringer for an international wire news service.

The Zimbabwean government’s closure of the Daily News, and the gutting of the newspaper’s physical infrastructure in defiance of court orders, sparked debate amongst African editors over the Internet, while countries as diverse and Kenya and Niger reported challenges to their independent media houses.

In Niger, the Higher Council for Communications ordered ten of the country’s privately owned radio stations to suspend their programming.

The secretary general of the French international press protection organisation Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, fired off a letter to the Niger government, demanding, “Just what is happening in Niger? A journalist has been jailed for the past two weeks, and now ten radio stations are suspended! The authorities must reconsider these actions, and remember their commitment to press freedom.”

“Souley did the unpardonable, as far as government is concerned, by printing a story about corruption in government contracts. He specified money that had gone missing,” a Niger journalists communicated to his colleagues via an Internet chatroom.

Suspending the licenses of radio stations, which offered alternative news and views from government-owned media, the broadcasting council said the broadcasters had failed to “comply with current regulations”. What constituted this failure was not specified. The stations have vowed to remain on the air.

In Cameroon, a newspaper editor was arrested for publishing a government paper that was not classified, but which the Minister of Communications felt was to be reserved for publication in the government-owned newspaper.

The Niger and Cameroon governments’ actions seemed unambiguously aimed at punishing or shutting down media houses that had offended authorities. The case of the Kenyan government’s actions against that country’s journalists seemed less clear-cut, and has media practitioners debating press ethics this week.

The African journalism community was disturbed to learn that three top executives of the Standard Newspaper Group, including the chief executive officer (CEO), the Managing Editor and an associate editor of the Sunday edition were arrested.

The newspaper published what it claimed to be the confession of a murder suspect allegedly involved in the death of a university professor, who was a member of a technical committee that is part of Kenya’s constitutional review process. The sensational murder, in broad daylight, had political repercussions. Of the five suspects in police custody, the Standard Newspaper’s “confession” claimed the murder was actually a politically motivated assassination.

The source of the confession was an official with the Kenyan police. The newspaper editors are charged with the publication of confidential government material.

Media defenders in the Kenyan press have written this week of a political conspiracy that roped in the Standard newspaper group. Among questions raised were, in the volatile world of African politics, how far should the media go in its investigative reports? What safeguards can journalists create for themselves as protection against manipulation by police or governing authorities? Does the “public’s right to know” allow the press to report sensitive information like preliminary police investigations?

“Increasingly I see journalists breaking the law to get the story, and then cry ‘press freedom’ when they are caught. We have to find a balance. I am not saying that the East African Standard editor was wrong, and I will support him with everything I have because he is a colleague. His chastisement will come from among us if he committed a wrong, rather than from a government whose justice tends to be selective,” says another East African editor in a statement posted to African journalists.

He was answered by a reporter from Uganda, “Despite the merits or demerits of our friends’ case in Kenya, I dare say that yes indeed journalists should sometimes (nay often) break the law if it serves some better good. And believe me, we won’t be the only ones doing it. I think if a law is stupid or regressive, it is our duty to break it to make exactly that point: that it is stupid or regressive.”

Growing impassioned, he went on: “And I am growing really tired of government secrets. Do we elect governments to have secrets? If as journalists we define one of our roles as holding governments accountable, then it seems to me that it’s exactly those very unpalatable secrets we should be striving to expose. And in this sense I agree with my media law professor who once argued that people should be allowed to discuss all ideas, including discussing the forceful removal of a government! They should not be arrested until they actually take up arms and fight the government. I am still a great believer in the adage that words never killed anyone. But governments did and still do.”

That Africa’s journalists are having these soul-searching debates shows a dedication to fair and balanced reporting, which will ultimately benefit African newsreaders. Even while rallying around colleagues who have been arrested by governments, media practitioners on the continent seem more concerned about ethical standards than self-defence.

For African nations dedicated to the pursuit of democratic systems of government, where the press must be the watchdog against official abuses, this bodes well for their readers and citizens.